December 22, 2009

Australia reviews drought feeding options

The Australian Cattle producers are reviewing their drought feeding options as the nine month long dry spell tightens its grip and access to molasses-based energy and protein supplements run out.

The Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation senior beef cattle extension officer Ken Murphy at Rockhampton said many livestock managers had committed to dry season supplementation programmes during winter. "Demand for available molasses has now exhausted supply and with no access to molasses and urea (M8U) supplementation, producers must look for alternatives to enable cattle to survive on remaining pasture that has little or no nutritional value," Mr Murphy said.

Cattle producers will now have to work with stockfeed suppliers to source whole cottonseed or copra meal, copra pellets or other limited lines of protein meals. Generally, Cottonseed is in short supply and stocks will not be replenished until ginning of the 2010 cotton harvest gets underway in March.

Whole cottonseed fed at 2-3kg per head, daily for lactating cows or 2kg or less for dry cattle depends on seasonal conditions will provide enough protein and energy to maintain the animals. Feeding of 1kg of copra products daily will maintain a breeder. If resorting to a grain supplement, cracked sorghum or wheat fed at a rate of 3-4kg per head daily into troughs will carry them through or alternatively use a self feeder and reduce the grain flow to match the required intake."

Once the calves are taken off from the nutritionally stressed lactating cows, they can be supplemented with a loose supplement mix based on salt and a high protein meal such as cottonseed meal.

All drought supplementation feeding programmes represented a significant financial commitment and while selling drought impacted cattle was an option, trucking poor conditioned stock raised animal welfare issues that must be taken into consideration.